Sarais were built by rulers, nobles and philanthropists in olden days, when there were no hotels for travellers and pilgrims. Their counterparts were the dharamshalas attached to temples mostly. Sher Shah constructed many sarais and so also the Mughals, Lodhis and Tughlaks.

Among the major sarais were Arab Sarai, attached to Humayun’s Tomb, built by the emperor’s first wife, Haji Begum, which still exists. Jahanara’s sarai in Chandni Chowk was a 17th century marvel.

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Sarai Juliana was built by a Portuguese lady attached to Aurangzeb’s court, in Okhla, where a DDA colony marks the spot. Sarai Kale Khan owes its inception to a noble of the later Mughal period and is now remembered because of the ISBT depot across the river. Badli sarai on GT Road survives only as a gateway.

Sarai Sohei is a ruin near IGIA. Azimgarh Sarai (Sundar Nagar) and the Sarai of Sheikh Inayatullah (Mehrauli) are now merely names. Mor Sarai was where Hardinge Library now stands. Katra Sarai in Mehramnagar, dating back to 1660, is a ruined building and there’s no trace of Bhooli Bhatiyari-ki-sarai.

Balika Chaman on Chelmsford Road, opposite New Delhi Station, was also a Sarai but has become a women’s hostel. Dharamshala Ray Sahib Lala Laxmi Narain is on Church road, Fatehpuri.

It was built in 1906. Lala Pyarelal Dharamshala came up in 1921 in Bazar Sita Ram. The Sabzimandi Dharamshala dates back to 1939. Kalkaji Dharamshala is in Kalkaji and Najafgrah Dharamshala, built in 1770, is near Temple Chowk .

There are no sarais in service now though some of the Dharamshala are still in use. The sarais had a common room for guests and also a place for horses, camels and bullocks used by travellers.

Some offered meals cooked by the Bharbuja. Sarais disappeared when dak bungalows and hotels started coming up and people needed better facilities. But hotel guests are still governed by the 19th century Sarais and Hotels Act.

According to Subhash Parihar, who did research for his book, Land Transport in Mughal India, published by Aryan Books International, there were sarais after every five kos or eight kos (10 or 16 miles). The actual name was caravansarais, the author observes:

“Along the Mughal Agra-Lahore Highway, caravansarais are know to have existed at least at the following thirty-seven stages: Bad, Mathura, Azamabad, Chhata, Kosi, Hodal, Palwal, Khawaja Sarai, Badarpur, Nizamuddin, Badli, Narela, Gannaur, Samalkha, Panipat, Gharonda, Karnal, Taraori, Thanesar, Shahabad, Kot Kachhwaha, Shambhu, Rajpura, Sarai Banjara, Sirhind, Khanna, Sarai Lashkar Khan, Doraha, Phillaur, Nurmahal, Nakodar, Mahlian Kalan, Sultanpur Lodhi, Fatehbad, Naurangabad, Sarai Amanat Khan and Sarai Khan-i Khanan.

Of these, almost complete speciments still survive at Mathura, Chhata, Kosi, Taraori, Shambhu, Rajpura, Sarai Lashkar Khan and Malian Kalan. Sarai have partially survived at Azamabad, Thanesar, Shahabad and Doraha.

Only gateways are extant of the sarais at Palwal, Badarpur, Badli (Azadpur), Gharonda and Sarai Banjara. Although saris built by Akbhar are known in other parts of the Mughal Empire, none of the Sarais along Agra-Lahore Highway dates earlier than the period of Jahangir.

“Architecturally, most of the extant sarais along the route follow more or less the same plan. These are invariably square or rectangular structures enclosed with high battlement curtain wall (the largest of the surviving sarais at Chhata covers a square of some 210 m).

Each corner of the enclosures is strengthened with a bastion, making them resemble forts so closely that local inhabitants still think them to be forts and call them so. Even some European travellers mistook these sarais for forts.

“The access to each sarai, but for those at Mathura, Thanesar and Sultanpur Lodhi, which have only one gateway each, is provided through two splendid gateways, wide enough to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter, set in opposite sides.

These portals are so large as to accommodate a large number of room of various shapes, arranged in one, two or three storeys. A resident staff of caretakers and guards might have been permanently housed in these rooms of the gateways.

“The central courtyard of a sarai is always open to the sky and along the inside walls of the enclosure are ranged single-storeyed small rooms to accommodate travellers. From among the extant sarais, the sarai Shambhu has the minimum number of rooms, 88, whereas the sarai at Chhatta has the maximum, 148.”

Every sarai was provided with a mosque for public worship. James Forbes writes that each mosque has a mulla to assist the pious Muslims in their prayers. The quarters adjoining the mosques or in its basement, found in some sarais, e.g. at Doraha, Shambhu and Azamabad, were, most probably, meant for the residence of these mullas.

Often a splendid hammam, still surviving in the sarais at Doraha and Nurmahal, also formed a part of a sarai. One or more wells to supply drinking water were dug inside a sarai. Only two sarais along the route, one at Badarpur and the other at Nizzamuddin were provided with a katra (a walled enclosure for storing travellers’ goods) each.

Pietro della Valle (1623), describing a sarai at Ahmedabad, namely, Darzi Sarai or the “Tailor’s Inn”, generalises that, “this sarai and those in other Great Cities of India, are not, as in Persia and Turkey, one single habitation, made in the form of a great Closter, with abundance of Lodgings round about, separate one from another, for quartering of strangers; but they are whole great streets of the City destinated for strangers to dwell in, and whosoever is minded to hire a house; and because these streets are lockt up in the night time for security of the persons and goods, which are there…”

Tavernier also mention two galleries in a sarai at Benaras, where merchants sold “cottons, silken stuffs, and other kinds of merchandise”. James Forbes also saw in some sarais, two ranges of apartments for the convenience of merchants, forming a street from one gate to the other.

He adds that the “sarais with four gates contained a double range of these apartments”, forming an avenue to each entrance. But no such compartments are seen in any of the sarais along the Agra-Lahore Highway.

“The plan for a sarai having been standardized, it was the architectural and decorative treatment of their gateways, where the architects exhibited their creativity.

These magnificent portals display the stylistic development of Mughal gateways over a period of about one century and serve as a gauge of style. And in the absence of epigraphic or literary evidence, the architectural style of these gateways helps us fix the chronology of a sarai.

“Broadly speaking, these gateways of the sarais along the route can be classified into two types. The first type follows the well-known Buland Darwaza in essence, i.e., in these the sides of the high central façade containing the archway, have been turned at an angle.

The sarai at Fatehpur Sikri, built by Akbar, used this type of gateway. Along the highway under survey, this type of gateways may be seen in the sarais at Nizamuddin, Shambhu and Nurmahal.

In the second type of portals, the broad façade of the gateways is in a single plane and is flanked by an octagonal tower, usually covered with a dome or a chhatri, giving the ensemble the impression of solidity,” says Dr Parihar. Instead of sarais the British built Dak Bungalows, few of which survive now.

R V Smith